The Economist - USA (2022-05-14)

26 United States TheEconomistMay14th 2022

tinuedtofacebarriersin education. A stu­

dy from Stanford University found that lo­

cal  police  partnerships  with  Immigration

and  Customs  Enforcement,  America’s  im­

migration­enforcement  agency,  reduced

school enrolment within two years among

Hispanic  pupils  by  nearly  10%  compared

with  districts  without  such  policies.  The

programme  displaced  over  300,000  His­

panic pupils in America between 2005 and

2011. In 2011 a new law in Alabama required
public  schools  to  determine  the  citizen­
ship  and  immigration  status  of  children
enrolling  in  school.  (It  was  eventually
blocked.)  The  Trump  administration
sought  ways  to  prevent  undocumented
children from enrolling in school, but gave
up on the effort. 
Mr  Abbott  thinks  Texas  spends  too
much  educating  such  children.  Rice  Uni­
versity’s  Baker  Institute  for  Public  Policy
estimates  the  cost  at  $1.5bn  in  2018 (less
than  3%  of  the  state’s  outlays  on  educa­
tion).  This  may  be  an  overestimate.  “Mar­
ginal cost might be a better way to look at
it,” notes Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Insti­
tute, a libertarian think­tank. “Adding one
more  student  does  not  increase  cost  very
much...It’s  not  like  they  are  going  to  shut
down  a  school.”  A  full  calculation  should
also  consider  tax  revenues.  The  Baker  In­
stitute  estimates  that  revenue  collected
from  undocumented  immigrants  exceeds
state expenditures on them by $421m.
How  serious  is  Mr  Abbott’s  intent?  A
successful  challenge  to  Plylerwould  take
years, from passing state legislation to the
subsequent  legal  challenges  and  an  even­
tual Supreme Court decision. “This is a 40­
year­old precedent at this time on the fed­
eral level. I don’t think there’s a lot of appe­
tite  to  pursue  this,”  says  Mr  Nowrasteh.
Maybe, but there is appetite forthepolitics
of  it—and  conservatives  have Supreme
Court precedents in their sights.n

Alesson in politics

Wrongfulconvictions

Delayed justice

I

n theautumnof2006,twoteenagegirls

weresexuallyassaultedinDetroit.With­

inweeks,thepolicehadtheirman.Terance

Calhoun,a local19­year­old,wasspottedin

a liquor store nearby and appeared to

matchthecompositesketchthepolicehad

produced.Hepleadedno­contestinFebru­

ary 2007 andwasdispatchedtoprison.

Therewasjustoneproblem:hedidn’t

do it. A follow­upinvestigation in 2019

founda litanyofredflagsinhowthecase

washandled,includinganunrecordedpo­

liceinterrogationandthefactthatMrCal­

houn,whowasfoundtobecognitivelyde­

ficient, had been questioned without a

lawyerpresent.OnApril27th,after 15 years

behindbars,hewasexonerated.

Hewasnotalone.Thegovernmentdoes

notrecordfigures,butin 2012 a pairofpro­

fessorsfoundedtheNationalRegistryof

Exonerations(nre) tokeeptrack.Itcount­

ed 161 exonerationslastyear,upmorethan

sixfoldcomparedwith1989,when there

werejust 24 (seechart).Theseshedlighton

weakspotsinAmerica’sjusticesystem.

Anexoneration“doesn’tjusthappenon

itsown”,saysBarbaraO’BrienofMichigan

StateUniversity,whorunsthenre. Acru­

cialdevelopmenthasbeentheriseof“pro­

fessionalexonerators”.Thesewerespurred

by improvementsindnatesting,which

spreadpublicawarenessofmistakes,and

cantaketwoforms.First,advocacygroups

suchastheInnocenceProjectplaya rolein

lobbyingforindividualcases.Thewmu­

CooleyInnocenceProject,a partofWest­

ernMichiganUniversity’slawschool,was

a criticalcomponentinMrCalhoun’scase.

Second,andperhapsmoreimportant,are

ConvictionIntegrityUnits(cius),branch­

esofprosecutors’officestaskedwithin­

vestigatingpossible miscarriagesofjus­

tice.Together,theseprofessionalexonera­

tors were responsible for 60% ofover­

turnedconvictionslastyear.

Some cius require cases to be dna­

based;a fewconsideronly cases which

havebeentried(asopposedtooneswith

guiltypleas);otherslookateveryapplica­

tion. Onceittakesona case,aciucombs

throughpolicefiles,courttranscriptsand

labresults,insearchofflaws.Theciuin

WayneCounty,Michigan,piecedtogether

thealarmingstoryofMrCalhoun’sconvic­

tion.Itfoundthatthednaanalysisofa

condomatthesecondcrimescene,com­

pletedjustthreemonthsafterhisconvic­

tion,hadexcludedhimasitspotentialdo­

nor. This result was apparently never

showntoMrCalhoun’slawyers.Otherdis­

coveriesincludedthefactthatoneofthe

victimshadclearlydescribeda perpetrator

with“braids”anda distinctive“puzzletat­

too”,neitherofwhichMrCalhounhad.

Sincethefirstcius wereestablishedin

theearly2000s, 93 otherjurisdictionshave

followed.Lastyear 16 wereformed,from

Bessemer,Alabama,toMonterey,Califor­

nia.Minnesotasetupa statewideciulast

August. Yet many are understaffed and

underfunded, and they remain few in

numberrelativeto themore than2,400

electedprosecutorsacrossthecountry.

Officialmisconductisthemainreason

behindmostexonerations:itplayeda role

in 102 ofthe 161 caseslastyear.In2012,for

example,RonaldWatts,aChicagopolice

sergeant,wasarrestedforstealingfederal

fundsfromanundercoverfbiinformant.

It gradually emerged that he had been

plantingdrugsandextortingvictimsover

thecourseofa decade,stitchingthemup

onboguschargesiftheyrefusedto pay.

Startingin2016,theciuinIllinois’sCook

Countybeganidentifyingandtossingout

allconvictionslinkedtohim.Sofarover

100 havebeenoverturned.

Mistakeneyewitnessidentificationac­

countsforabouta thirdofexonerations.

Misleadingforensicevidenceisrelatively

rare, responsible for roughly 20% of

wrongful convictions. Other factors in­

cludeperjuryand,asinMrCalhoun’scase,

falseorcoercedconfessions.Nearlythree­

quartersoftheexoneratedwhofalselycon­

fesshavebeenfoundtobementallyillor

intellectuallydisabled.

Since 1989 thenrehasrecordedmore

than 3,000 exonerations in America,

amountingto27,080yearsoflostfreedom.

Thatisjustthetipoftheiceberg.Samuel

Gross,oneoftheproject’sco­founders,es­

timatesthatthewrongful­convictionrate

maybeashighas2%,orsome20,000false

felony convictions a year. Finding and

overturning those injustices isessential

work—for Mr Calhoun, now in his

mid­30s,andthemanyotherslikehim.n

N EWYORK

Thenumberofexonerationshasrisen,

andtheirpatternisrevealing

Guilty until proven innocent

United States, number of exonerations, by crime

Source:NationalRegistryof Exonerations *To May 10th

200

150

100

50

0

1510052000951989 22*

Other

Sex crimes

Drug possession or sale

HomicideHomicide